Although canned fruit and vegetables don’t offer much regarding survival food, they are an excellent way to supplement your diet. They can become comfort foods when food fatigue sets in. On your last trip to the grocery store before the blizzard sets in, make sure you get some cans of green vegetables and low-acidic fruits like pears because those canned foods have a longer shelf life. If you have kids, pick something they like as well. It will help you deal with those picky eaters when the crisis is in full effect.
This is true, Kat. Babe, it doesn’t even need to be a true crisis… There are lots of times your stash will come in handy. Unexpected company. Your kid telling you the night before the bake sale that he needs 3 dozen brownies to take to school the next morning. You get out of work late and are too tired to make a grocery run. Everyone in the family gets the flu and you can’t get to the store. The list goes on but the point is that you should be rotating, using and enjoying your stash as part of normal living. A cookbook you might find useful is “The Prepper’s Cookbook” by Tess Pennington. Lots of ideas for setting up your base stash and great recipes too.
Another best practice is to store a variety of foods in a single bucket. So, for example, instead of creating a bucket filled with a single food type, create a bucket that include a variety of foods plus appropriate condiments. If you are ever forced to use your food storage, you can pull a single bucket with everything you need to get by instead of riffling through a dozen or more buckets to gather what you need for meal-preparation.
In the event of an EMP situation, I fully intend to band together with my neighbors to protect our neighborhood from outsiders who may to try to loot or worse. I fully intend to share resources if they are into that. I fully intend to share medical supplies, knowledge, recipes, seeds and more if necessary. I know for a fact that my neighbors and I differ greatly on political issues, and especially political candidates from every election since we’ve lived here. But in a SHTF situation, we’d all be in it together. Please remember that before jumping down each other’s throats in the comments here. We are all interested in being prepared, because we are all alarmed and or scared of what may happen in the future, because not everything is in our control. But our behavior toward each other is absolutely within our control.

I just wanted to comment about an important thing that people need to remember (mistakes happen more often during stressful times): some of the advice given here have to be done AFTER the blast and the aftershock, not BEFORE them. You have to use the few minutes you have to get all the gear you can muster in such a short delay and run to the shelter you want to hide in.

Jennifer had already taken the necessary precautions the night Hurricane Maria came barreling through the Caribbean. The 46-year-old stay-at-home mom, who lives on two acres of land with her husband and four children atop a mountain in Manati, Puerto Rico, was ready to make use of the filter she’d purchased for sterilizing rainwater in case the taps ran dry. And she didn’t have to worry about food, because her pantry was already stocked with two-and-a-half years’ worth: giant buckets of lentils, flour, and rice; shelves lined with mason jars of fruits and vegetables she had grown and canned herself.
If you managed to get everything listed above and a little extra, once you get back home it’s time to take care of your groceries. Storing food for an extended period requires some preparation if you don’t want to waste your money. First, you will need a cool, dry place that is dark even during the day. If you have a basement or cellar, you have the ideal place to store your food as long as it is not too close to the heating installation. And second, make sure that the temperature doesn’t oscillate too much in the place designated as your temporary survival pantry.

A thermonuclear war, a zombie virus outbreak, or an alien invasion — whatever may arrive, the world population will most likely deplete by less than half. Due to this deadly possibility, many people struggle to figure out on how they can live through the harshest times. If a catastrophe that can eradicate humanity happens today, did you prepare enough to survive?

Oil of oregano. This is my favorite pick for a medicinal herb. This stuff has amazing immune system benefits and antibiotic properties. We use it constantly in my house to wipe out colds and flues, it does the job every time! Capsules are the most convenient form, although you can purchase the oil and add it to beverages (Don’t expect it to taste good!)
I guess I have been taking a longer view. Any disaster will shut down delivery to stores so all fresh greens will stop. I remember that during the same period in history the Polynesian sailors were able to stay out at sea much longer than European sailors and didn’t know what scurvy was. They used bean sprouts to supplement their diet. Last Christmas I asked my wife for a bean sprouter. It has been a lot of fun playing with, eating and learning to work with a multitude of seeds. One interesting fact was that wheat sprouts have an interesting sweat taste. This got me gathering information about what makes good sprouting seeds and it seems that fresh and non-treated (as usually done by our commercial world) is the critical factor. It was about the same time I learned that one of my nearby farm friends has a crop of winter wheat being harvested this July and would have no problem giving me a 5 gal bucket. (@ ~$8.00 a bushel) So I started looking for a food grade bucket and learned that both Jewel and Dominics (grocery stores) go through a number of 5 and or 2.5 gal buckets weekly or daily, (labels usually describe cake icing) for free. Sometimes I have to clean the remnants out, but that’s not to hard and the price is right and they are food grade. I am excited to have fresh wheat and two uses for wheat. Opps I still need to get a flower mill. One step at a time. I have the buckets now.

Rice. This is an old standby. It can form the base of many tasty and nutritious meals. Be aware that although it requires no processing, it does require quite a bit of water to cook. It is most economical to buy rice in 40 lb bags and repackage it into buckets yourself, a 5 gallon bucket will hold a 40lb bag. For a bit more you can find rice sold pre-sealed in buckets from a number of sources.

This group has a primary concern with maintaining some form of legal system and social cohesion after a breakdown in the technical infrastructure of society. They are interested in works like The Postman by David Brin,[48] Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch,[49] or Marcus B. Hatfield's The American Common Law: The Customary Law of the American Nation.[50]

8. Oats – Another staple, that is super cheap & easy 30 year storage option. Oats are perfect for the prepper because they only require boiled water to prepare, then just add some cinnamon or sugar and you have breakfast. It also helps to control blood sugar and cholesterol. Oats can also double as feed for most animals. Here are 10 reasons you should store oats.
Legacy Foods 120 Serving Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Bucket is a great option for vegetarians or people who want more of a bland foundation that you mix with other ingredients. For $299, one bucket covers two people for two weeks at 1,500 calories per day. Although other companies drop the calories to cut costs, Legacy assumed you would add more ingredients to their base, so we thought the relatively low calories per day was acceptable.
The first item to go into the stash is the first item to be used up, and then when you head out shopping or running errands you replace the used quantity in the stash. So after eating a can of chili out of your emergency stash, for instance, you would replace the can with another one bought at the grocery. The next oldest can of chili would be the one you draw next time you need chili, and so on. This is known as “rotating” your supplies.
To your closing, I’d like to add something that Solomon said in the book of Proverbs: “The prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” So, we all should work, as Claude said, to keep making our personal situations stronger, and safer. God gave us incredible minds. Lets put them to good use. I like to do something every day; no matter how small it may be. Because, when you add up the little things, it turns into a great accomplishment.
I was surprised to read an MRE review here. I’ve had my fair share of them as well. And for the record, if I was the first to the box, my favorite was Menu 3 Beef Ravioli in meat sauce. Not half bad. I never considered them an option for disaster preparedness though because they were always too bulky for what you got in them. Most of the time in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d open them up, and stow the spoon and the main meal and toss the rest back in the box for others to pick over later. We… Read more »
“Everybody thinks about prepping as this big doomsday thing, like when the zombie apocalypse happens,” Luther says. “But really it’s a lot more likely that someone’s going to lose their job or that you’re going to have a major expense you weren’t expecting, like your car breaks down or a medical expense. So if you think of prepping as something to get you through those situations, it’s really almost like an insurance policy.”
There’s going to be a fire risk in your bunker, and it could even be in the walls. Many professional companies use Expanded Polystyrme (EPS) foam blocks which, according to Clarence Mason of Tempest Building Systems, are highly flammable and full of toxic chemicals in an attempt to make it less flammable. They should, ideally, be encased with something that is not flammable, but because they’re used in part to reduce costs, you might be tempted not to.
I connected with Jennifer through Daisy Luther, the Virginia-based writer and survival preparedness expert behind the blog The Organic Prepper, which boasts more than 30,000 followers on Facebook and roughly 32,000 monthly visits on Pinterest. Jennifer says she learned a lot about prepping from the site and is a member of its affiliated private Facebook group, which Luther says is nearly 77 percent women. (Luther and other bloggers I spoke with for this story say that while they approach survivalism from a female perspective, they’ve encountered no small number of men who are interested in these practices as well.)
Don’t let prepping overwhelm you because there are many companies wanting you to buy their product. And I agree with pat Henry, things are not as bad as what many think. I have been listening to doomsday talkers since 2011 about the imminent collapse around the corner and there will always be people saying this. So don’t rush to spend thousands of dollars. Do a little at a time and stay within your means. This is a good article because it gives you general categories such as a means to purify water, then food, then medicine, then security and also… Read more »

My biggest fears our that men, particularly white men, will refuse to grow up, all the while corporations rape & pillage the earth and set working class people here and around the world against each other to their advantage. Men need physical work & activity, craft, not office life. Without that men find themselves frustrated & lash out, unable to define themselves in the world. There is a reason that handcrafted materials are so often better, homegrown food healthier.

Google has always been a reliable source for information. With Google Public Alerts, not only do you have access to weather warnings but also current events going on around the world. The program is still growing and perfecting but it’s an awesome addition to preppers repertoire. The system also provides information on where emergency responders should go.

Our world headquarters is located just an hour east of Dallas, Texas. This plant manufactures shelters with sizes ranging from the affordable BombNado that goes in under new homes being constructed to the popular round culvert pipes which have been around for decades to the Billionaire class poured in place concrete hardened bunkers that cost into the millions.

Yes, another non-necessity, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I like having options and redundancies. We have the smaller version of the Solo Stove – the Titan, and it’s great, though we’d prefer a larger size than we’ve got. Solo Stoves are overbuilt, definitely a one-time purchase rocket stove, looks pretty stinkin’ good for what it is, and while, yes, you can totally have a regular fire-on-the-ground, this is one of those things that helps you out in the you-won’t-need-too-much-wood department. And if you’re at all into greyman survival – well you won’t be leaving a mess behind if you use one of these to contain your fire.
Also, I’m not a big fan of eating canned food if I don’t have to. I feel it comes with chemicals and has less nutrients. However, in certain situations, it’s better to do that than starve. It definitely stores well. I like to keep beans and seeds around to sprout when I need them. Sprouts are highly nutritious and it fits better with my taste buds as I eat mostly fresh foods; although I am also keen on the beans and rice idea and I always stockpile 3 months of organic oatmeal if I can. Another thing I do is buy carrots and cabbage in bulk and leave them in the refrigerator as both veggies last a long time and you can eat them for at least a month if not longer. Onions are also a decent vegetable for lasting for a duration and when they start to sprout you have yourself some green onions instead. Potatoes also last fairly well. If you buy spaghetti squash and pumpkin in September, it will usually last until February.
A lot of us don’t truly appreciate how much spices can add to our dining experience until we don’t have them. While they don’t have a lot of calories, I think they are important for preppers to put back. A lot of spices can be bought by the pound for a low cost. I cook every day and sometimes it takes a few years to go through a 1 lb of some spices!
This one in particular can get unruly fast, as there’s always plenty you’ll want to do with regards to prepping no matter how much you’ve already got done and under your belt. If you’ve already started one of these, it’s been set up for a while, and happens to be a complete mess, take a look at the article I spoke about before, on re-organizing your prepper to-do list. It will help you sort your list out in an order that makes sense.
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The second point you should know is this — suppose you do manage to die a quick, merciful death. What about your kids? Your grandkids? What kind of future will they face on their own? Foraging for food, drinking tainted water, becoming easy targets for human predators…is that really the future you would wish upon them? For that reason alone, it makes sense to become educated about nuclear events, how to prepare for them, and how to survive them.

I love my bread machine and hope to use it as well although I do know how to bake traditional bread too. I just baked my first loaf of bread using home-milled flour. I made a 100% whole wheat bread and used a powdered egg plus some vital gluten. It was a bit more dense than normal – I should have added more water to account for the extra gluten (4 TBL). Still, it was quite delicious 🙂
90. Short range rifle – The .22 LR rifle is regarded as the prepper’s best friend. The ammo is plentiful and extremely cheap and could always double as a barter item, so stock up! The Ruger 10/22 series is a make & model you can’t go wrong with. This rifle can be used for small game and can quite possibly be used for large game if no other rifle is available.
14. Canned Cheese – A little company in Australia, called Bega, makes a wonderful canned cheese that can for a LONG time! The manufacturer says that the shelf life is only 2 years, but canned goods if handled properly can last much longer than that. Here is one prepper who opened them after 13 years, and the cheese still tasted great! Grab some Bega for your next camping trip, and see how you like it, may make a nice addition to your long term food storage plan!
Prepping isn’t just for the zombie apocalypse. I live in costal New England and you can bet that there will be at least two or three situations where you won’t have power or won’t be able to get to the store for a while. Blizzards, hurricanes, etc. Also personal crises like losing a job or unexpected car repairs can leave you looking at zero food budget. Always good to have emergency rations to live off of until things return to normal.

A word on the market. It's not news that the DOW has been slammed by 1700 pts in the last 48 hours, but tomorrow will be interesting. Will the sell off continue? Bottom line: Likely not organic. Is this the coordinated crash, or crash attempt? Here is what the non establishment types think: There was no "selling panic", and no legitimate liquidation as the selloff was largely a function of coordinated deleveraging by both hedge funds and systematic traders. I.E., It's a hit job. Not that the "why" or "who" matters when the rubber hits the road. Just a heads up...

After 15 minutes, I was startled to discover that the cereal had puffed up into a Kashi-like multitude of grains, flecked with tiny pieces of apple, complete with green peel, that looked just-chopped. It didn’t taste as good as it appeared: Eyeballing a fourth of the bag had resulted in a poor distribution of seasoning, yielding a flavor I can only describe as water laced with traces of cinnamon and sugar, though subsequent attempts tasted better.